Cloudflare Introduces Free Digital Waiting Rooms For Any Organizations Distributing COVID-19 Vaccines

Darrell Etherington reports via TechCrunch: Web infrastructure company Cloudflare is releasing a new tool today that aims to provide a way for health agencies and organizations globally tasked with rolling out COVID-19 vaccines to maintain a fair, equitable and transparent digital queue -- completely free of charge. The company's Project Fair Shot initiative will make its new Cloudflare Waiting Room offering free to any organization that qualifies, essentially providing a way for future vaccine recipients to register and gain access to a clear and constantly-updated view of where they are in line to receive the preventative treatment.

On the technical side, Cloudflare Waiting Room is simple to implement, according to the company, and can be added to any registration website built on the company's existing content delivery network without any engineering or coding knowledge required. Visitors to the site can register and will receive a confirmation that they're in line, and then will receive a follow-up directing them to a sign-up page for the organization administering their vaccine when it's their turn. Further configuration options allow Waiting Room operators to offer wait time estimates to registrants, as well as provide additional alerts when their turn is nearing (though that functionality is coming in a future update).

Waiting Room was already on Cloudflare's project roadmap, and was actually intended for other high-demand, limited supply allocation items: Think must-have concert tickets, or the latest hot sneaker release. But the Fair Shot program will provide it totally free to those organizations that need it, whereas that would've been a commercial product. Interested parties can sign up at Cloudflare's registration page to get on the waitlist for availability.

Cloudflare

[GayLinuxDev]

They have been doing quite a lot of things right in the past few years or so and this is yet another notch in their belt. I never thought much of them but when they deplatormed the daily stormer a few years ago I started to have a much higher opinion of them. Now this new program truly shows that they're one of the good guys. Keep it up.

Re:

[im_thatoneguy]

They both deplatformed the Daily Stormer and acknowledged that they probably shouldn't have that power.

âoeWe need to have a discussion around this, with clear rules and clear frameworks. My whims and those of Jeff [Bezos] and Larry [Page] and Satya [Nadella] and Mark [Zuckerberg], that shouldnâ(TM)t be what determines what should be online,â Matthew Price CEO of Cloudflare said. âoeI think the people who run The Daily Stormer are abhorrent. But again I donâ(TM)t think my political d

We really, really need this

[Applehu Akbar]

My rural county had to throw together a vaccine reservation and individual patient registration system together in a weekend, and it shows. Pages full of insurance details you need to fill in, and then the Submit button won't work because one of the required fields, a simple "Self/Other" combo box, is greyed out and can't be set. There are date fields that only work with the Chrome browser. This is happening just as FOMO is replaing reluctance on vaccination and everyone wants to schedule a shot.

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[munch117]

Why would a county need such a system? I'd have thought this was a state-level thing.

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[ftobin]

States can delegate to the county. Apparently Illinois is doing this.

CIA front

[adrian_vanburen]

I've thought for years that cloudflare is a CIA front, and oddly specific features like this only reassure my certainty.